ppc

>The wireless key on the g4 uses wep but after checking the router it says it uses wpa2, so this maybe the problem?

Yes.

Would it be correct to assume that this iBook G4 is using an internal AirPort Extreme (802.11g) card?

If so, the requirements for WPA (not WPA2) are;

Mac OS X 10.3 or later and AirPort software version 3.2 or later.

If this software is installed, you may be able to use WPA, if the router is set to accept "WPA/WPA2". However, a typical recommendation is to use a "WPA2 only" router security setting, leading to a connection problem in this very case.

Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points - Apple Support

>maybe a compatible Wi-fi dongle?

A USB Wi-Fi adapter requires special drivers. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find modern USB adapters (capable of handling WPA2) with support for anything lower than Mac OS X 10.4.

A wireless Ethernet bridge (also known as a gaming or media adapter) could be connected to the Ethernet port of the computer. Examples are Linksys WET610N and Netgear WNCE2001. Some Wi-Fi range extenders (such as TP-Link RE200) do also have wireless Ethernet bridge capabilities. These devices do not normally require special software, and can thus be used under almost any operating system. One disadvantage is that the units are not as small as a USB Wi-Fi adapter. Also, mobile use will require alternative power supply solutions.

WEP is different and you need to set it to WPA2. 10.3 is so old that I don't have any documentation on how to do this, but you may have a Network pane in System Preferences. There is probably built-in Help.

The certificate problem is separate and is likely to be because the Mac is so old that it doesn't have the current security certificates. I'm not sure you can do anything about that. Even with 10.6 I've found that many sites simply won't open or won't work properly.

Pip1953 wrote:

would be a shame for it to be obsolete..going to investigate the Linux route before I give up. Many thanks once again, much appreciated. Phil

I'm not certain if there are any PPC only Linux distros anymore such as the old YellowDog. Here is an article from 2018 about using Ubuntu and doesn't really mention any other distros.

https://lowendmac.com/2018/installing-linux-on-powerpc-macs/

If you want to use the built-in iSight camera, you may need to pull the camera firmware from your current OSX installation. I know this is necessary for the Intel systems, but I'm not sure about the iBooks. I'm also not sure if there are any PPC ports of any recent web browsers. I do know that their is much less PPC software available in the Debian repositories than what is available for other architectures.

IIRC those iBook G4's didn't include much memory so even a recent Linux distro will have some trouble running on them. I know the more recent distros (especially with graphical desktops) have gained weight over the older ones I used to use on original Pentium systems years ago. Unless you can find some other recent PPC only distro, I personally I would suggest using Debian 8 "Jessie" which is now about 4 years old since it should be a little more efficient on your limited memory resources than Lubuntu which is the same age. If you were to remove a lot of the automatic "junk" for mounting drives etc. you can get the base memory footprint down to about 70MB. I actually did this with Debian on a 32bit Intel system which only had 2GB of RAM and it ran really well. I just installed the base Debian system without any Desktop Environment, then basically I just manually added the LXDE Desktop Environment without any of the recommended items (--without-recommends flag for aptitude).

Since Debian recently revamped their website moving the older items into an archived area, the download link for the PPC .iso "netinst" network installer is a bit hard to find since they moved the older versions to an archive location and removed the larger .iso downloads.

It appears the last "netinst" .iso download was Debian 8.10 which should be Ok to use:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/archive/8.10.0/powerpc/iso-cd/debian-8.10.0-powerpc-netinst.iso

Here is a direct link to download the "LXDE" version of Debian 8.11"Jessie".

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/archive/8.11.0/powerpc/iso-cd/debian-8.11.0-powerpc-lxde-CD-1.iso

Here is the list of possible Debian 8 installers if you want to check out your other options:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/archive/8.11.0/powerpc/iso-cd/

Here is the accompanying installation guide although some of the links within it may be broken especially for the installer download links.

https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/powerpc/index.html.en

I have to say that personally I wouldn't throw any money at all at a computer this old: as I've suggested it's liable to be extremely limited in what it can do, particularly regarding websites. Since you got it working with ethernet I suggest you spend some time with it connected like that, trying out various things you hope to use it for, and then only if you're happy about it consider whether to spend money on it. Bear in mind that items such as wifi bridges will be redundant if the computer fails, as is a possibility with old ones (though Macs can have a very long life).